Michelle Obama Releases Fancy Book About Gardening

As promised, our First Lady Michelle Obama has published her first book. It is a book about gardening, and if “The Help” is any indication, it is sure to be a bestseller, because isn’t it probably the same thing, except with Mexicans? Apparently, no! “Michelle’s Secret Garden,” as we like to call it, or “American Grown,” as it is actually called, tells the story of the White House Kitchen Garden. It also offers gardening tips, and “the story of how, together, in gardens large and small, we have begun to grow a healthier nation.” Because this new book costs over twenty dollars and Amazon.com is not yet accepting food stamps, the actual contents of the book will remain a mystery to most of the country, including your FLOTUS correspondent, who is not about to spend thirty dollars on a book about vegetables when the ice cream shelf in her freezer is running low on supplies. Thankfully, an excerpt from the book is available online, so we’ll just read that and use our imaginations to come up with the rest.

“American Grown” begins with Michelle Obama looking up at the sky. She was probably on a balcony, wearing some sort of gown.

On March 20, 2009, I was like any other hopeful gardener with a pot out on the windowsill or a small plot by the back door. I was nervously watching the sky. Would it freeze? Would it snow? Would it rain? I had spent two months settling into a new house in a new city. My girls had started a new school; my husband, a new job. My mother had just moved in upstairs. And now I was embarking on something I had never attempted before: starting a garden.

But this was not going to be just any garden— it would be a very public garden. Cameras would be trained on its beds, and questions would be asked about what we had planted and why we had planted it. The garden was also being planted on a historic landscape: the South Lawn of the White House. Here even the tomatoes and beans would have a view of the towering Washington Monument.

“Just how socialist is that arugula?” is her favorite question, she probably says, later in the book.

And over the past three years, our White House Kitchen Garden has bloomed into so much more. It’s helped us start a new conversation about the food we eat and how it affects our children’s health. It’s helped us raise awareness about our crisis of childhood obesity and the threat it poses to our children’s future. And it led to the creation of Let’s Move!, a nationwide initiative to solve this problem so our children can grow up healthy.

So there is your Michelle Obama gardening book: “I started this garden, and you can start a garden, or you can continue your reign over that booth at the Cheesecake Factory. It’s your funeral.” In addition to the brief excerpt, there is a salad recipe featured on the Good Morning America web site, buried somewhere under a giant picture of ribs and Emeril’s Fried Chicken and Buttermilk Waffles. [ABC News]

Comments

Does she hide the Purple Bubblegum Trainwreck plants in amongst the tomatoes?

MissTaken

Michelle gets gardening tips from my dad?

Beowoof

Well how socialist and gay is that. And she is doing it just to hurt those Red State real ammurican farmers.

MrFizzy

Kenyans are known vegetable eaters. More proof.

Barb

Barack uses grow lights in the Lincoln bedroom to raise his crops. Intercepted!

http://loljazzcatz.blogspot.com/ Chet Kincaid

It was the White House electricity bill that tipped them off. Did they think the cops would believe he's running the free world with that kind of wattage?!

WIDTAP

But given that Barak doesn't smoke anymore and Michelle would not do something as fattening as brownies, what could they possibly do with all of that product?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Ahhahahahaha. You know how the Republicans have been acting like maroons on drogas lately? I mean, like, mind-destroyingly srs drogas?

edgydrifter

Lots of hopeful gardeners start with pot on the windowsill. The nervous sky watching isn't usually weather-related, though.

Baconzgood

True story. I was living in a old duplex greystone. I switched apartments with my neighbor (long story). About a month after we switched places he was getting a hair cut and the local beat cop was there just hanging out talking. He turned to my neighbor and said "And don't think I don't know what your growing on your windowsill. I'm not stupid."

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Yeah, I tried to pull that shit on my Dad when I had four plants in, heh, pots on my balcony. He said, "What's that you've got growing on the balcony?"

I said "Herbs. For cooking."

He said, "Oh. Back home that stuff grows everywhere, like a weed. But people don't use it for cooking."

OMG! Why does Michelle OBamer politicize gardening? Why must she turn nature into a platform for her disgusting and disturbing views!???!?! Isn't it bad enough that Michelle Obamer makes fun of fat white people because they are white that she must turn gardening into some liebrul thing!!!!! Outrage I say! Outrage!!!

SorosBot

"On March 20, 2009, I was like any other hopeful gardener with a pot "

Wait, Michelle is growing the marijuana on the White House lawn?

nounverb911

Did she get tips from Susan Ford?

BaldarTFlagass

"..there is a salad recipe featured…"

What the fuck do you need a recipe for when you make a salad? Just take all the vegetables you have in the refrigerator, cut them up, and mix them up in a big fucking bowl. What's so hard to remember about that?

Callyson

Did you check out the recipe? Any salad that uses Cajun spice is worth a try…

Thanks for asking. I've always wondered what the deal is with salad *chefs,* for fuck's sake.

chascates

Monsanto, Dow, and Cargill are not pleased.

Nostrildamus

Loved the chapter on Bill Ayers' Victory Garden.

LastGasp

Sounds pretty much like the Victory Gardens people in the US were urged to start during World War II. Y'know, to be self-sufficient and help out the war effort. But that was a different era; today anyone who starts their own garden is some sort of nonconformist agrarian hippie.

I scream for ice cream! I can always start my diet tomorrow…

qwerty42

Commie traitors, the lot of them. Maybe even (gasp) vegetarians. Or worse.

“Just how socialist is thatarugula?” is her favorite question, she [probably] says, later in the book.

There, fixed.

MissTaken

50 Shades of Gourd

Callyson

FOR THE DRESSING
&frac14; cup white wine vinegar

Hold the vinegar, add more white wine, and I'm in…

Biel_ze_Bubba

GOP version: double the vinegar, and add more white whine.

Callyson

I also knew that I wanted this new White House garden to be a "learning garden," a place where people could have a hands-on experience of working the soil and children who have never seen a plant sprout could put down seeds and seedlings that would take root. And I wanted them to come back for the harvest, to be able to see and taste the fruits (and vegetables) of their labors.

Wingnuts screaming about socialist indoctrination in 3…2…1…

nounverb911

Ann Romney, if elected, promises to rip out the garden and install a Dressage arena.

Tundra Grifter

Didn't George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grow hemp? I know Jefferson grew poppies on his plantation.

I can't wait for the right wing nutz to attack our FLOTUS. I hope the loyal Wonketters go over to Amazon and defend her.

And for amusement, check out the review/comments flame wars under "The Amateur." The T-Baggers and assorted right wing nutz are out in force.

SayItWithWookies

Well if there's a way to eat crabgrass and ghetto palms I'll be set — that is, however, the entire gamut of plants I can keep alive.

MissTaken

Mint, even I can't kill mint.

SayItWithWookies

There's a pile of rotting greenish matter in a planter in my kitchen says I can.

Lascauxcaveman

Mint's amazing. I transplanted some to make room in my garden for more veggies, and stuck it all in the shade near my deck so we can just reach down and grab a handful for making mint tea of a summer's eve, and a month later it's going gangbusters. I also left a pile of mint roots in my wheelbarrow, no dirt at all, and forgot about it, with the wheelbarrow just sitting out in the yard catching rain as it comes, and THAT batch is growing even faster.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Y'awl must be doing *some*thing right. I've managed to kill my mint so often, I don't even bother with it anymore.

Yet, I can grow rare and unusual — endangered, even — natives in my garden. I don't get it.

redarmyzombie

You know, we used to have mint and deadly nightshade growing together in my backyard. Everything else we grew would die after yielding their crop, but those two just kept on growin'.

So is there some advice on growing Cannabis in this book? Or is that the "arugula?"

gullywompr

Anthony Bourdain should drop by for a taste, without a reservation.

Dildeaux

"Cops, come 'n try to snatch my crops"

SorosBot

She may be encouraging us to grow vegetables, but still I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

widestanceromance

Slightly OT: Has anyone seen White House kitchen gardener/chef Sam Kass? I want to grow him to blue ribbon size in my garden, and by garden, I mean, throat.

vulpes82

History's greatest monster.

ttommyunger

Would definitely plow Michelle's cabbage, anytime.

Alyssa_Corpus

A book a little unexpected from a woman related to a politician, and not just any politician… but the president of USA. I hope I could have a chance to purchase this book. I am a fan of gardening too, I would order soil perth quarterly for the maintenance of our garden. I'm sure Mrs.Obama's book would further inspire me!